321 thoughts on “Comments Continue 8/24”

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Short answer: I agree with your overall point, but you get some details a bit wrong.

So to be very precise here, consider scenario A, in which everyone votes honestly, with each person nominating all works that he/she thought Hugo Worthy. Let N be the number of points (not votes) held by the fifth item (out of the top six) at the end of the last round of EPH.

There are now going to be 6 finalists per category, so let’s speak of the 6th of the top 7. Note that this 6th item has N6 points but M6 approvals, where M6>N6. The fifth has N5 and M5, where M5>N5>N6 but we don’t know whether M6 is less than M5.

Now consider scenario B, in which hard-core fans of Y decide to boost its chances by voting for Y alone, even though they really did think other items were also worthy. If there are N+1 or more of them, they will successfully place Y on the ballot. (Fewer than N+1 might work, but N+1 is certain to.)

No. We already know there are less than M6 of them, or they would have won in scenario A. So in order to win, there must be more than N5 of them, so that they can avoid the faceoff with work 6 altogether. That is an even tougher target to meet than you suggested, so it’s less likely that bullet voting works.

Under EPH, the fifth item in scenario A could have had as many as six times as many votes as points. Under EPH+, it could be as many as eleven times. Those are extremes, but in a category like BDP (long form) a factor of four doesn’t seem unlikely–especially with EPH+.

There’s still a limit of 5 works per ballot so the numbers you’re looking for are 5 and 9, not 6 and 11, but… essentially yes. However, that would only happen if every single voter approved multiple finalists. I think that the average number of finalists approved per ballot will never even reach 2, so the additional power from bullet voting would be more like 20% or 50% more rather than a multiplier of several times bigger.

@Jameson Quinn
Your N5 is my N. I said they need N+1, and you said they need more than N5. How are these statements in conflict with each other?

There’s still a limit of 5 works per ballot so the numbers you’re looking for are 5 and 9, not 6 and 11, but… essentially yes.

Oops. You’re right, of course.

I think that the average number of finalists approved per ballot will never even reach 2, so the additional power from bullet voting would be more like 20% or 50% more rather than a multiplier of several times bigger.

This is the crux of the argument, of course, but do you have any data to support that? It would only be in the BDP categories (or maybe Best Editor) where I could see any chance of that happening.

The movie Destination Moon was co-written by Heinlein and partly based on Rocket Ship Galileo. I assume Phil Lesh just got confused on titles.

Especially if the movie title was mentioned on the book. Still have to use Google if I want to know what the US name for “A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!” was, because that was on the back blurb and it’s much more memorable.

I just looked at the Retro long list, and how did I not know Nightfall was eligible? Did I just miss that being discussed? It’s the only Asimov short that’s really distinctive – Robbie is one of the Robot series, I know, but all of those just blur together.

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the final volume of Jaclyn Moriarty’s YA The Colors of Madeleine trilogy came out in March, and I’ve really enjoyed the previous two books. (Based on those, anything on your list would be wildly out of left field.)

…hmmm, that may be my next read. I preordered it, but I’ve been moving and starting a new job, and I’m hopelessly behind on my to-read pile.

City of Blades is quite good, but is very much about the nature of war and mentions guerrilla-type warfare and some child combatants and questions if civilians are valid targets. So you may want to give it a pass.

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the final volume of Jaclyn Moriarty’s YA The Colors of Madeleine trilogy came out in March, and I’ve really enjoyed the previous two books. (Based on those, anything on your list would be wildly out of left field.)

I left that book (A Tangle of Gold) off my list of recommendations to Tasha because of a sequence where a character gets placed in a cult-like environment, which was perhaps over-careful of me. I would say the third book is slightly darker than the first two for that and a couple of other reasons, but the series as a whole is pretty bright and fun and delightful, and I’m happy to second the thumbs up for it; I think I was being too cautious.

I was evidently incorrect about whether the novella “Destination Moon” had been reprinted, but it’s one of the most unmemorable things Heinlein ever wrote, and not likely to have been what Phil Lesh read and reread in elementary school. He must have been thinking of Rocket Ship Galileo, although the differences between it and the movie Destination Moon aren’t exactly minor (the movie featured neither teenagers nor Nazis). Nor do I think it’s likely that Scribner’s would have placed a blurb such as “basis for the major motion picture in color, Destination Moon” on copies of the novel.

@Kyra: I left that book (A Tangle of Gold) off my list of recommendations to Tasha because of a sequence where a character gets placed in a cult-like environment, which was perhaps over-careful of me. I would say the third book is slightly darker than the first two for that and a couple of other reasons, but the series as a whole is pretty bright and fun and delightful, and I’m happy to second the thumbs up for it; I think I was being too cautious.

I’m now wondering if I was not cautious enough! Thanks for the extra warning.

It’s aimed younger than the Moriarty books, but anyone who likes children’s/YA or has a kid who likes fantasy might be interested in Jessica Day George’s Castle Glower series, of which the first is Tuesdays at the Castle. I’ve found the first two unexpectedly delightful. There’s a new one out in 2016 (Fridays with the Wizards, and yes, they all have days in the titles.) Tuesdays verges on grim in a missing parents/dastardly plot sort of way, but it’s the sort of age-appropriate grim where it’s pretty clear that everything will be resolved happily.

@Mark: the sequel to The Witches of Lychford is apparently called The Lost Child of Lychford and, well, details at that link. (Coming in November, apparently.)

Regarding Puppy beliefs, I would call myself a multipuppyist – I think they are not a homogeneous group, and there are several different sub-groups, but whether they call themselves “Sad” or “Rabid” is not the most important distinction to make between them. You may now proceed to burn me at the stake as a dangerous heretic.

(Don’t do it yet, though, as I’ve still got The Obelisk Gate to read.)

@Greg Hullender: Larry both said he wanted to make liberals heads explode AND brought Teddy in, thus the Sads created the Rabids. Larry and MGC still defend the Teddy Boys. It’s a distinction which makes no difference. So I guess I’m a Monopuppist. And yes, all of them are about self-promotion.

In any case, all the dogs very clearly lost this year to cats (pictures of).

@Mark-kitteh: I really wanted Lensman to beat Slan. It’s a better book. Also I wanted either 4E or Bob to win fan writer.

I read Wesley Chu’s “Time Siege” and really liked it, though had the feeling I’d missed something. Found out 75% of the way through that it’s because it’s the second book of a trilogy. HOWEVER, I still understood all the world building and was invested in the characters, which shows mad skillz deserving of the tiara.

@Jonathan Edelstein: the first paragraph of that is a story in itself!

@Jeb: Nice photos! Isn’t that one of 770’s parks next to giant duckie?
(There sure were a lot of giant things in that space: duckie, astronaut, tower)

Regarding Puppy beliefs, I would call myself a multipuppyist – I think they are not a homogeneous group, and there are several different sub-groups, but whether they call themselves “Sad” or “Rabid” is not the most important distinction to make between them.

The late Umberto Eco had a wonderful passage about this (the ‘great river of heresy’ one), about 40% of the way into The Name of the Rose (the literary murder mystery set in a mediaeval monastery in 1327 C.E.). Eco slyly talks about the dynamic between contemporaneous social reform movements and their followers (and the different receptions they got from the authorities), framing it as an inquiry from young Adso of Melk to William of Baskerville about why some movements were declared heretical and pursued with flame and sword, while other essentially indistinguishable ones weren’t.

William’s answer, if you strip the vivid imagery, interesting asides, and learned allusions, amounts to: Some of those movements attracted inconvenient sets of followers, whose presence threatened the powers who run things, and caused the movements’ leaders to be condemned by association. Some of those movements had friends in high places, or had become too strong to suppress and thus were accommodated instead. (There was of course a lot more to that.)

So, I think of that occasionally: Is it fair to judge a movement by who its hangers-on are, and what they do and say? Maybe, maybe not. Is it realistic to assume that the adherents of a movement share common goals and values? Often not at all.

Thanks for all the book/story recommendations. Keep them coming. Please remember to include trigger warnings so those of us who need to can make informed decisions and plan appropriate self-care when tackling books with sensitive topics.

It’s not that I don’t read tough and difficult books and short stories. Too many dark/grimdark and triggering books in a row and I can’t function. I have a number of emotionally difficult books lined up including Jemisin’s latest which I know is going to be brilliant but brutal. I need to read a few upbeat stories before and after.

So many people misunderstand why some of us request trigger warnings. They think it’s so we can wrap ourselves in a bubble and never challenge ourselves. This ignores the fact our lives our more challenging than they imagine daily and we would like control over when our entertainment media is going to drain us emotionally and not be unexpectedly punched in the gut.

lurkertype on August 24, 2016 at 4:15 pm said:
So I guess I’m a Monopuppist. And yes, all of them are about self-promotion.

[CF brushes down his tweed jacket and removes pipe from mouth before pontificating further, as professorially as he can manage]: Well within the duopuppyist school, we of course acknowledge the zeroth axiom of puppyology: it is all about promotion.

[removes spectacles and leans forward for added effect]

However, the duopuppyists also note:
1. For Vox it is only about self-promotion either of his works, his publishing house or his political agenda.
2. For Sads it is more about mutual promotion and reciprocal patronage – both in a benign way (e.g. Mad Genius) or in a less benign way (SP3)

[proceeds to place ear piece of spectacles into mouth and sucks on them having mistaken them for the pipe]

@Tasha: Good point. “This Is a Letter to My Son” should have a TW for cancer (the protagonist’s mother died of it when the protagonist was a baby, and left a series of recorded messages to her “son” (who grew up to identify as female)).

@ Tasha: Life in Stone, Glass and Plastic by Jose Pablo Iriarte may be another one for your list, especially the “kindness” part. There are some depictions of traumatic memories and death, but the ending is heartwarming (albeit bittersweet) and morally uplifting.

I want to once again thank Bartimaeus for providing a link yesterday. I had missed both that post of Jameson’s and Kevin’s previous post. Based on the dates, that isn’t terribly surprising – they line up with “the best time to take a new high stress job is when a family member is in the hospital.” I expect I’ll have also missed some stuff during “three weeks is a reasonable time for an air conditioner repair during summer in Alabama.”

I am now trying on the idea of 3SV as community self-moderation. I’ll keep thinking about it.

—-

In other news, I’m thinking maybe I don’t need to finish Too Like The Lightning. I don’t think it’s a bad book, but having gotten about a third of the way through, I’m rather indifferent. I could be using that time to read Time Bangers.

I listened to Midnight Taxi Tango during the solo portions of the drive to Kansas City. That I loved. Not for those who don’t want to read scenes with gun violence or insect swarms, though.

Also, nice to see a recommendation for Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic.

So many people misunderstand why some of us request trigger warnings. They think it’s so we can wrap ourselves in a bubble and never challenge ourselves. This ignores the fact our lives our more challenging than they imagine daily and we would like control over when our entertainment media is going to drain us emotionally and not be unexpectedly punched in the gut.

Yep yep. I loved the show Moral Orel but there was one episode where Orel and his alcoholic dad went out hunting and Orel expressed the thought that his father was too drunk and wham

I was back as a timid girl having the temerity, the absolute fucking gall to suggest to mom that she was maybe too drunk to drive.

Fortunately I was binging seasons 2 and 3 with a friend who grew up with an alcoholic father so we were able to have a loooooooong discussion about it. Great show but I wish I’d known about the landmines.

My view is that there is only one set of puppies. There are different leaders, some of whom call themselves “sad” while others use the “rabid” brand, but they are competing for control of a single group of people.

Let me trace out some of the reasons why I think that any Puppy taxonomy based on (e.g.) observed conduct in Web comment sections is doomed to futility.

[1] At my college, Office of Population Research is right across the street from Woodrow Wilson School (aka Yamasaki Bicycle Rack for its modernist architecture). One evening, feeling OPR needed a proper sign, undergrad-me erected one citing its name then, below that in smaller letters (pace Wilson), ‘Help Make the World Safe for Demography’. But that’s my closest brush with demographers.

I’d also add my recommendation to the Colours of Madeleine but will note that there is a suicide related subplot in the second book (spoiler for info: Gur punenpgre qbrfa’g tb guebhtu jvgu vg naq vf sbhaq naq pnerq sbe ol ure ybivat naq fhccbegvir sevraqf) and cancer/family illness in the first and third (Ntnva ab qrngu). They’re lovely books though.

I finished the Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe yesterday and while all the Lovecraft went completely over my head I enjoyed the world and the plot (older woman explores world, roles for older women in sexist societies) and there were no obvious triggers (unless I was skimming at the time which is possible, I’m down with flu so not at my best rn).

I also read Behind the Throne by KB Wagers which was excellent – think the Goblin Emperor but in a matriarchal interstellar Hindu-inspired empire with green haired woman Han Solo. There is a high body count (mostly offscreen) and the main character actually shows plenty of remorse and grief for loved ones rather than shrugging and going “WELL I’M A GUN RUNNER SOO *PEEEW PEEEEWWW* DGAF” (so, you know, like canon Han Solo not manboy caricature Han Solo) but she also has great (non romantic) relationships and support from her bodyguards and staff which means it’s not a heavy emotional read. HOWEVER there’s a really unpleasant scene near the end (Puvyq fhvpvqr obzore) which puts it firmly outside your request I’m afraid Tasha 🙁

Looking back over my other 2016 reads among novellas Forest of Memory, Run Time and Penric and the Shaman all tell great stories without needing any of those plot points from what I remember. Run Time does have some gender dysphoria and dysfunctional parent child relationships, and Penric has some odd but ultimately non harmful stuff with animal souls. There are definitely also novels I loved which I’m fairly sure are fine (Raven and Reindeer!) but I’m less confident in my memories of those and don’t want to mislead.

I would also like to note for the record that I am on a book diet until the end of the year and am absolutely going to resist buying any new stuff based on recommendations in this thread before January 2017 because I have enough books. No really. Stop laughing.

I’m not entirely sure why you would want to separate the puppies from the trolls and gators in the comment section. I thought your points was actually a good argument for why we should judge them according to their behaviour there.

I’m not entirely sure why you would want to separate the puppies from the trolls and gators in the comment section.

Do I? I’m honestly not sure whether we have any disagreement here or not. (I’m always fine with agreeing to disagree, after clarifying what is being said.)

What I was getting at is that the fluid and varied nature of the net.random factor on Internet forums, particularly ideological ones with pseudonymous posting and zero transaction cost for coming and going, makes it difficult to know who’s really part of a IRL cause and who is merely an essentially unrelated thrill-seeking drive-by. Thus, Greg Hullender risked conflating two (three, maybe more) very different construings of the word ‘Puppy’.

On the one hand, we talk about the way ‘Puppies’ (SPs and RPs) vote in the nominations and (if at all) final ballot, on another hand about ‘Puppies’ being exemplified by what ostensible puppy leaders / spokescritters say, and on the gripping hand about ‘Puppies’ being exemplified by what somebody-nobody-in-particular-without-a-real-name spews onto some Web-forum-or-other from Crankville, Arkansas without garnering a tongue-lashing. I suspect that’s not just three somewhat different subgroups; I suspect it’s actually dozens of different subgroups, many having quite different agendas and most of them never even dreaming of nominating.

And, in particular, I was advising Greg that studying what pseudonymous randoms post to ideological Web forums will probably (IMO) tell him little about what nominators think, those two ways of dealing with the world involving somewhat orthogonal skillsets and mentalities, in my experience.

@Arifel
Thanks for the rec regarding Behind the Throne by K.B. Wagers. That one is on my Mount TBR.

@Tasha
Novelwise, 2016 seems to be a rather grim year. Though Becky Chambers’ A Close and Common Orbit is coming out later that year and if the previous book is anything to go by, it should match your preferences.

Finally, here are some 2016 short fiction recs, which were positive and hopeful with no triggering content and which I liked a lot:

@ Jamoche: “Nightfall” stands out for me primarily as being, if not the first, then one of the first stories in which I was consciously aware that the science didn’t work. As a character study it’s decent, but as a SF tale it’s seriously flawed, and not in the “been overtaken by advances in science” way.

@ Tasha: I too appreciate trigger warnings even though I don’t have actual trigger issues. But y’know, when I’m tired and looking for some relaxation reading, I don’t want to be unexpectedly smacked in the face by a rape or a fridging either. It’s much better to be able to make my own decisions about whether I’m up for dealing with that or not. This is one of those “curb-cuts” things, where something initially put in to accommodate people with a disability turns out to be useful for a lot of other people as well.

@Jamoche
The presence of “Nightfall” on the longlist confused me, too, until I checked and saw that it was a 1941 story and therefore not eligible for the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards, which are for works published in 1940. Captain America #1 is a similar case – not eligible, since it came out in 1941.

God Stalk-related reading:
I am soon to embark on “To Ride a Rathorn”, having just finished “Seeker’s Mask.” I’ve decided to take a break and chill for a book or maybe a book and a novella, though. I have to admit, I was not happy with the direction “Dark of the Moon” took, after the first book, but once I accepted that the series was not going to be one long story set in one small but awesome setting, but rather one long story told with entirely different and insanely psychedelic settings/styles, and that the world building in “God Stalk” was nowhere near completed in that one book… I’m finding this series to be a pure joy, a forgotten gem. Now I feel the need to slow down, because there are only so many books in the series. Though on the other hand, I want to re-read the series once I’ve finished, to pick up all the little clues and pieces I missed the first time around. One great element in this series that is sometimes missing in fantasy: a sense of humor.

But I don’t want to finish the Kencyrath series too soon, so in the meantime I’m reading Eekhout’s “California Bones”, recommended by a sometimes-filer (and her husband) who I see semi-frequently at a local watering hole and whose taste I feel I can implicitly trust.

I also still have the “new” Graydon Saunders in my TBRSOON pile, and just bought “Obelisk Gate”, which I’m itching to get at.

And I bought all the (recently-enkindled) “X Magic” books, by Andre Norton, mainly because I remembered “Steel Magic” and wanted to re-read a book I’d read multiple times in my childhood. Bit of a hit by the suck fairy, there. Arbitrary story, with a lot of goddidit elements in the plot. I’ll continue on, because they are short and fun, but my childhood reckoning of “B grade at best” turns out to have been accurate.

Puppy-wise… eh. I read Torgersen’s screed, Correia’s wail, VD’s various proclamations of “Exxxxxxcelllent. I. Am. Amused. Everything is going as plannnned.” I saw Torgersen mock Camestros, who is so incredibly nice to and patient with him and his at all times, with childish jibes… I saw how now Correia and Torgersen, both once angry that the RP and SP movements were being conflated, have conflated the RP and SP movements… they just aren’t worth addressing any more. They are either completely dishonest or incapable of seeing the world outside their narrative of me-as-victim. Either way, I don’t see any point in engaging them further. I thought maybe, with last year’s more transparent Puppy process, I may at least find some good reading recs from Pups, but the best one I found, Sebastien de Castell, was also adamantly recommended by a Filer.

ETA: Re Triggering – Someone I was very close to had a terrible experience when they were young several years before I knew them. Sometimes, some physical or mental situation would cause them to completely freak out and start shaking. Years later I first read about a “trigger warning” and I immediately understood what “trigger” meant. Nothing triggers me, unless I’m insanely sick or hungover, but I have first-hand experience with someone who could go from “yay! good times!” to shaking and crying in seconds. And that person was not a “special snowflake” or a “pearl clutcher.” Which is just to say, I hope people can understand how, even if you may not have experienced anything that bad, remember other people have.

The United States of America consists of 50 very different states, but they’re still all one country. So it is with the variety of Puppies, only more so; there’s a much bigger difference between north and south, or east and west, than between different kinds of Puppies. As kathodus said They are either completely dishonest or incapable of seeing the world outside their narrative of me-as-victim. Either way, I don’t see any point in engaging them further.

@Mike Glyer: “A way to keep time from hapening all at once.” – Hehehe, perfect!

@Various: Also perfect! 😀

@k_choll: I hope this isn’t a common misconception – it used to be mine, though! I hope people don’t vote differently for any reason under EPH (misconception or not). Er, except Puppies – I hope they vote differently. 😉

@Andrew M: I was aware of Heuvelt’s book. I’m not really into horror, but the premise intrigued me and I read the sample a while ago and liked it. So it’s on my list to buy (which doesn’t mean it’ll be bought soon; I still haven’t picked up a couple of sequels to books I loved, so I’m way behind on book buying, to say nothing of book reading).

Whoops, almost forgot: I finally finished Seveneves, which ended in a fine place – not as abrupt as I’d expected from the scuttlebutt. It seemed fine, really. The book overall, though – needs moar editing. Fewer useless info dumps, which (among other things) wrecked pacing sometimes.

Now I’m listening to The Obelisk Gate, yay! But somewhere late in Chapter 2??? there’s a blank spot and while it was only 10-15 seconds, it seemed like there was a chunk of text missing. Boo! Must complain to Audible. Must track down the exact spot (ugh, I kept listening, so I’m not sure where it was, exactly). Anyone else listening and into Chapter 3 and run into this? Somewhere around 1 to 1.5 hours into the book, methinks. I’ll try redownloading first, I suppose. Anyway, great book so far, but it starts very dark.

Thanks to the book smugglers and, I believe, Kyra’s endorsement, I recently read Hardinge’s the lie tree and I now have new favorite author. I was a bit surprised at just how upbeat the end was, given how grim the rest of the novel is, but I think it did a fine job of balancing the fuck yeah with some clear eyed assessment of future prospects, and anyway I liked the fuck yeah, so whatever.

I also rather liked Cassandra Clarke’s Our Lady of the Ice, which mixed noir, post-steampunk, high society and robot revolution into a satisfying story. I thought it was significant stronger than the author’s previous novels, which was a pleasant surprise.